Prime Minister Julia Gillard and Opposition Leader Tony Abbott both announced new policies on border protection today as the asylum seeker debate took centre stage in pre-election political manoeuvres.

Taking aim at what she called the Opposition's "rhetoric" and "hollow slogans" on turning asylum seekers back at sea, Ms Gillard announced that the Government was negotiating with East Timor on setting up a "regional processing centre" to handle new boat arrivals before they arrived in Australia.

She said she had held talks with the United Nations as well as East Timor president Jose Ramos-Horta and New Zealand's prime minister John Key on setting up the centre and asked for the "patience and support" of the Australian people.

"The purpose [of the new centre] would be to ensure that people smugglers have no product to sell," she said.

"A boat ride to Australia would just be a ticket back to the regional processing centre ... to ensure that everyone is subject to a consistent, fair assessment process.

"I told the UN High Commissioner that my Government is not interested in pursuing a new Pacific Solution. Instead, Australia is committed to the development of a sustainable effective regional protection framework.

"I want to reassure Australians this is not about a quick fix, there is no quick fix. Only this sort of long-term approach will deliver what we need."

Ms Gillard said the Government was lifting the suspension on processing claims for Sri Lankans after the release of a new UN report overnight, clearing the way for all Sri Lankan asylum claims to be processed as far as possible.

The report, from the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, described "greatly improved" security in Sri Lanka, and said it should not be presumed that Tamils need asylum.

"I have a message for people in Sri Lanka who might be considering the journey to Australia," Ms Gillard said.

"Do not pay a people smuggler, do not risk your life only to arrive in Australian waters to find that you are far, far more likely than anything else to be quickly sent home by plane."

However, she said the freeze on processing asylum seeker applications from Afghans would remain in place pending more talks with the government of Afghanistan.

Ms Gillard promised to "wreck the people-smuggling trade by removing the incentive for the boats to leave the port of origin in the first place."

But she noted that last year Australia received 0.6 per cent of the world's refugees and said the Opposition's insistence on "turning boats back" was a "fairytale" which would result only in the asylum boats being scuttled and their passengers having to be rescued by Australian vessels.

"Our nation would not leave children to drown," she said.

"The Opposition strategy of turning boats back would become a strategy of rescuing people from the water.

"Stop selling our national character short. We are better than this. We are much better than this."

Earlier Mr Abbott promised to give the Immigration Minister the final say on refugee status decisions.

The new Coalition policy presumes that an asylum seeker who deliberately destroys their identity documents is not a refugee, and makes it tougher for asylum seekers who arrive by boat to be resettled in Australia.

A Coalition government would also scrap the current Government's merit review panel and give asylum seekers to same legal rights in Australia as they do in Indonesia.

The Opposition also plans to boost the Immigration Minister's powers to challenge the granting of visas in individual cases.

Mr Abbott says a democratically elected minister should play a greater role in determining who is granted refugee status.

"Regardless of whether the decision is yes or no, the minister should be able, at all stages, to seek a review," he said.

"At the moment as I understand the situation there can be ministerial review of 'no' decisions but there can't be ministerial review of 'yes' decisions."

Mr Abbott says the measures would put an end to the Government's "tick and flick" approach.

"They demonstrate that you can trust the Coalition to keep our borders safe," he said.

"My message to voters would be, if you want to stop the boats, you've got to change the government."

The Coalition would also increase the number of places for asylum seekers who apply from offshore and it has proposed a scheme for community groups to privately sponsor refugees.

The Immigration Department said 1,050 people were currently affected by the visa freeze on Afghan and Sri Lankan asylum seekers. Of those, 866 were Afghans and 184 were Sri Lankans.

A department spokesman said 2,571 "irregular maritime arrivals" were in detention on Christmas Island and 1,695 on the mainland.